Alien: Covenant, a step closer to Alien! Review

Alien: Covenant, a step closer to Alien! Review

When the news of the first prequel to the classic 1979 movie Alien was announced I was very excited and when Prometheus was released I really enjoyed the movie in its 3D glory, now with the release of Alien: Covenant, the saga gets closer to the timeline of Ridley Scott’s first Alien movie.

The night before heading over to the cinema to see the latest in the Alien saga, I refreshed my memory by watching Prometheus in 3D (again), just so I could get the feel for the latest movie, boy that movie looks good in 3D!

Alien: Covenant isn’t in 3D, but if you do live near an IMAX cinema you do have the option of seeing the movie on a massive screen. I popped by the local cinema in Prestatyn, the Scala, last night and got ready to see if the movie still has the grip on me as did many of the previous movies did over the years, hopefully with some scares during the movie.

Alien Covenant – Xenomorph

Starting with a bit of a prequel storyline to the previous prequel, we are then brought forward ten years after Prometheus went missing as a colony ship is making its way to a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, but on route they discover a distress call and change course to head to what seems like the perfect planet to set up the colony, but this planet is not what it seems.

Alien: Covenant – A Step Closer to Alien!

This movie isn’t really on par with Alien (1979), although it does have those moments of making the audience jump, Prometheus was a movie that had us asking so many questions and wanting to go back to the point of reliving the excitement and the anticipation that Scott’s first Alien movie had, but Alien: Covenant seems to take us on a journey of discovery and maybe more down the “monster movie” road.

But that doesn’t mean to say that the movie is all bad, it certainly has those moments through the film that do have you on the edge of your seat and wanting to know more about the creatures and a little more about the engineers, although we don’t really get to go down either path for those, but we do see the development of the Alien species thanks to Michael Fassbender’s Dave and Walter.

The characters themselves do have a feel of similarity to them and I did wonder at times if I was maybe watching a reboot of the 1979 movie, with a few of the characters coming across like the crew of the ill-fated Nostromo, I didn;t feel that any of the key characters in the movie were coming across as you’d miss them when they got slaughtered and I was right.

Michael Fassbender and Katherine Waterson stood out the most for me during the 2-hour movie, they did seem to build up a relationship that came across as one needing the other through the horror that they had discovered.

It was nice to learn what had happened to Shaw (Noomi Rapace) from Prometheus and where she and David had landed up after they left in the Engineer’s ship at the end of the movie.

Alien: Covenant is a nice addition to the franchise, it ties in the previous movie and hopefully leads us closer to the point of the 1979 movie, so that the prequels will indeed tie into probably one of the best Alien movies in the franchise.

The special effects are nicely done, the CGI works well as does the colouring and the 7.1 surround sound with the rear and side speakers being used to great effect.

I enjoyed Alien: Covenant, not as much as Prometheus, but none the less, I still found that the 2 hours didn’t drag, which is always a good sign, but at the end of the movie I wanted more, I wanted to know what happens next! And look out for James Franco.

Alien: Covenant

Summary

Alien: Covenant is a nice addition to the franchise, it ties in the previous movie and hopefully leads us closer to the point of the 1979 movie, so that the prequels will indeed tie into probably one of the best Alien movies in the franchise.

Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer, based at the Scala in Prestatyn and at the many Cineworld screens, where she reviews the latest movies, she has also had several articles published in various publications. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK's Top 10 Film Blogs.